What is Dialectic?

Karl Popper famously opposed Marxism in general and its philosophical core – the Marxist dialectic – in particular. As a progressive thinker, Popper saw in dialectic a source of dogmatism damaging to philosophy and political theory. Popper had summarized his views on dialectic in an article that was first delivered in 1937 and subsequently republished as a chapter of his book (2002, pp. 419-451), where he accuses Marxist dialecticians of not tolerating criticism. Ironically, Popper’s view that all Marxist dialecticians dogmatically dismiss any criticism of dialectic by claiming that their opponents do not understand dialectic makes his position no less dogmatic. Indeed, any attempt to criticise Popper’s views on dialectics would be seen only as an additional example of responses by “dogmatic dialecticians”, making his theory essentially immune. This completely prevents dialecticians from being able to criticise Popper’s views. This is exactly the opposite of what the great philosopher wanted. Therefore, for the sake of “antidogmatic science” it is desirable and even necessary to defend dialectic. In this work I address several central points about Popper’s criticism of Marxist (materialist) dialectic. In particular, I (a) analyse Popper’s definition of dialectic as the dialectic triad (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) and contrast it with a notion of dialectic as a much more complex concept which occurs in dialectical materialism today, where the triad represents only one of the aspects; (b) compare dialectic with the trial and error method; (c) discuss the place of dialectic amongst valid scientific methods: Does dialectic accept logical contradictions; (e) discuss lessons dialecticians should learn from Popper’s criticism. I will test my arguments as to their constructiveness and will demonstrate explicitly the nature of my disagreement with Popper - thereby trying to avoid the “dogmatic dialecticians” response as much as possible. Progressive, anti-dogmatic science is critical – criticism is its very life. Karl Popper

I. Introduction: Popper and dialectic today
Today. the validity of many Popper's ideas and claims are somewhat controversial. However, they are more relevant than ever. Rethinking Popper means reassessing his ideas in the present day context. During the last decade of his life, Popper had a chance to enjoy an apparent refutation of the communist ideology. The collapse of the Soviet Union was met with euphoria and was accompanied by an expectation that the world will become a better place. Yet, today we realize that global political and social dynamics is 1

Modern science – science of complex adaptive systems. The paranoid fear of alternative world views. Thus. It should be stressed. It would be too ambitious in this article to address the question of the general applicability of the dialectical approach to all processes in the world in this article. non-linear phenomena. that nothing in dialectical materialism. Dialectic and dogmatism
Popper accused Marxists of dogmatism. Ironically. However. and dialectical materialism was discredited together with it. thirteen years after his death. reassess our view of dialectic and its suitability as a valid philosophical and scientific approach today. rather. needs an adequate philosophical framework and methodology. Today we also understand that the idea of democracy was and is exploited. And dialectical materialism deserves attention as a serious potential candidate for such a framework. it would be interesting to analyse the connections between modern dialectical approach and relevant on-going studies on emergence. which is still absent today. The purpose of this work is by addressing the Popper's original 1937 critique to reassess the notion and the place of the dialectical approach in today's philosophy. nor to discuss the state of the dialectical approach during his life.
II. implies communism. etc. etc. It was developed. especially in the Soviet tradition.much more complicated. power and resources were a real force behind both these actions and the colour of the ideological umbrella did not really matter after all. Popper’s remark of how Marxist dialecticians dismiss any criticism of dialectic by claiming that their opponents do not understand dialectic makes his position no less dogmatic. My aim is. Ideologies are exploited by political regimes: and so the Stalinist terror and collapse of the Soviet block cannot be accepted as refutations of the communist dream any more than the crimes of the Inquisition can be accepted as a refutation of the existence of God. for example. If. The US intervention and support for the overthrow of the elected socialist coalition of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973 and its replacement by the military dictatorship of General Pinochet is no different. Notwithstanding the above. the notion of dialectic has been politicised to such an extent that now defending dialectic is associated with being an enemy of freedom and democracy. selforganisation. as a philosophical system. and the fight for influence. The roots of this sad unfair predicament lie already in Popper's 1937 article. from the 1969 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and suppression of Alexander Dubček's liberal reforms. My aim is neither to launch a personal attack on Popper now. the idea of communist was associated with Stalinism and totalitarianism in general and therefore discredited. in its essence. one was 2
. that the rehabilitation of dialectic is a very important task. Here I focus on the applicability of the methodological aspects of the dialectical approach to philosophy of science. process ontology. as an incredibly systematic philosophical system. This system certainly deserves very deep unbiased analysis. I am convinced.

. by no means the definition of dialectic as materialist dialecticians see it today. The dialectic. nor does it provide a formula that enables us to prove or predict anything. This is. predicts nothing and causes nothing to happen. is a theory which maintains that something – for instance. proves nothing.
III. p. Thus. [on-line Encyclopaedia of Marxism] Following Engels (1946) the modern materialist dialectic is associated with the following laws : 3
. synthesis. with their opposite and contradictory sides in unity. A similar situation would arise if Popper. Although. Bertell Ollman (2003) Dialectics is not a rock-ribbed triad of thesis-antithesis-synthesis that serves as an all-purpose explanation. anti-thesis. because it does not take into account such and such aspects of dialectic.claiming that a particular argument of Popper is incorrect. 421): Dialectic . dialectics is a way of thinking that brings into focus the full range of changes and interactions that occur in the world. Most physicists would not accept his claim and perhaps a number of them would accuse Popper of not understanding relativity. Any such attempt would be dismissed on the grounds of dogmatism. attacked the theory of relativity by dismissing the postulate of invariance of the speed of light. I would like to stress that Popper's remark.. for example. cannot be directed to dialectic per se. that aspect of Popper's criticism is not constructive. Very uncritical. It does not add anything to the content of the argument. This completely prevents dialecticians from being able to criticise Popper’s views. explains nothing. like the modern theoretician of Marxism. human thought – develops in a way characterised by the so-called dialectic triad: thesis. how can one defend a view if not by trying to demonstrate where the opponents argument is flawed. I of course agree that there might be dialecticians with a dogmatic view. Does it make the theory of relativity dogmatic? Surely not. is it? This is exactly the opposite of Popper's critical attitude. Dialectics is the method of reasoning which aims to understand things concretely in all their movement. It should also be mentioned that there are Marxists who have adopted an antidogmatic position. 2002. Popper would accuse one in dogmatism. Indeed. change and interconnection. Dialectic and dialectic triad
Popper gives the following definition of dialectic (Popper. Rather. nor is it the motor force of history. and do not wish to defend them. however. as such. which criticises them.

one of them is simply eliminated.g.(Orlov. This fact is very important since the universal applicability of this law is subject to controversy amongst dialecticians from different schools. e. therefore. a) When the Thesis and the Antithesis do not lead to a Synthesis. Thus. do not hold in general. Trial and Error Method (T&E) versus Dialectic (D). p. Materialist dialectic is a study of connections. What these examples ought show. as Engels argued in Anti-Dühring and in Dialectics of Nature. though fundamental in dialectical methodology. and he supports his claim by four scenarios. interplay of opposites. though. Popper. pp. 326-7). identifies dialectic only with one of its aspects.“Diamat” . dialectical approaches. and compares it with dialectic (D). it is able to grasp complex types of connections. though applicable in some situations. and development is a central concept of dialectic. 106). especially in the Soviet tradition of Dialectical Materialism . have gained general recognition. materialist dialectic is a theory about development. The topic of development is directly relevant to the argument between emergence and reductionism in philosophy of science. so although dialectics satisfactorily describes some developments. Studying development in its general terms becomes more and more important and relevant today. and the most complex type of connections – development (Introduction to Philosophy. remains beyond the scope of the present article. The aim of dialectic is to study things in their own being and movement via the connection of opposites.  
Laws of Dialectic The law of interpenetration of opposites (unity and struggle of opposites) The law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa The law of negation of the negation
What Popper refers to appears to be the last law – the law of the negation of the negation. Thus. e. It is essential to point out that the examples in the following sections are not given to support the view that all processes of development in nature are dialectical. This question. the concept of dialectics as a theory of development is crucial in the next section. when theories of complex systems and processes in biology. leaving all others aside. where we compare dialectic and the trial and error method. social and physical sciences. is that the development of our scientific ideas and hypotheses about the physical phenomena described in these examples can only make sense if analysed through the eyes of dialectic. 1991. synergetics. Instead. According to Popper.
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Popper presents the trial and error method (T&E) as a universal way in which human thought in general and scientific development in particular occurs.g. 1989. it is not consistent with others.
IV.

d). Dialectic versus Formal Logic
Now we arrive at a crucial point . b) and c) do not promote development. Popper completely misinterprets dialectic and accuses it of not being exactly what it is.
V. Thus.Popper's core argument against the dialectical method in science. It should be noted that the topic of the relationship between formal logic and dialectic was often addressed in the Soviet Diamat literature [for example.
1 Zuzana Parusnikova has pointed out. If will contain some entirely new idea. According to Popper. the situations described in a). development is an essential part of the dialectical approach with all attributes associated to it: Including completely new content that emerges as a result of a development. therefore dialectic is opposed to formal logic. even where it may be applicable. and sometimes the Antithesis is not produced at all. Thus. therefore T&E has wider application than D which does not account for that. will hardly ever help to develop thought by its suggestion that a synthesis should be constructed out of the ideas contained in a thesis and an antithesis. (Popper. this point deserves farther consideration it is not clear at this stage whether it accounts for emergence of a qualitatively new. Dialectical interpretation does promote development precisely because Synthesis is not just a construction from the material supplied by Thesis and Antithesis. for those aspects of the Trial and Error method which are not shared by Dialectic cannot account for development. it is not simply a construction built merely of material supplied by Thesis and Antithesis and preserving the best parts of both. Rather our critical attitude produces the Antithesis. I reach conclusions radically different to Popper's. dialectic is dangerous. 2002. p. Trial and Error method and dialectical approach do not compete. it violates the “law of (exclusion) of contradiction”. They describe changes which are not associated with development.
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. that refutation of. Contradictions for Popper are logical contradictions.424) I would like to start from the last point. As we have already seen in Section II. And since accepting contradictions will ruin science. dialectic accepts contradictions.b) Many independent theses can be offered. say. The very fact of it being refuted leaves an imprint on our background knowledge. The dialectical interpretation. c) The Thesis does not produce the Antithesis. there is a section devoted to the issue in Introduction to Philosophy (1989. since it is the most crucial one. so to speak. a thesis does not eliminate it or erase it. For the same very reason. Although. d) In the case when the Synthesis is produced. Nothing new emerges – all was contained already in the thesis or the antithesis 1.

no amount of further information about his exact height (and the heights of others) could help us decide whether he is tall. those connections of things which lead to an existing state of affairs generating its own “negation” . c) Negation (antithesis) is not in logical contradiction with the thesis. Formal logic studies and classifies statements and propositions. which violates the classical principle of bivalence. The main objection against Popper's conclusion was systematized and put forward by Maurice Cornforth (1977. but to your disrespect for real connections. Keefe and Smith write (1997. for example Keefe and Smith (1997)]. And arguably this indeterminacy amounts to the sentence “Tek is tall” being neither true nor false. and therefore contradictions mentioned above should be regarded as contradictions between rival scientific hypotheses. 11). because dialectic treats things in their interconnections-the idea can be best expressed in Cornforth's own words (1977. However. logical incompatibility of propositions. For a start. corresponding to rival scientific hypotheses. chapter III). has to be set outside of formal logic.p. That unfortunate result will not then be due to your respect for formal logic. if you ignore the ways things are connected-if you ignore. and also scientific hypotheses. say. It seems that the unclarity about whether he is tall is not merely epistemic. When it deals. Indeed. it distinguishes between those proposition that are true and those that are false. whereas everyday propositions. p.
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. say.151) titled “Dialectic and logical contradictions”] as well as in Western Marxist writings (Ollman. As a result. with two propositions A and ¬A. b) Dialectic is not opposed to logic: rather. In particular. p. Here I summarise the key claims: a) Dialectic does not suggest that the laws of formal logic can be broken or set aside.
2 Here the term 'metaphysics' is used in its traditional Marxists meaning. there is no fact of the matter here about which we are ignorant: rather. it is indeterminate whether Tek is tall. But formal logic is hitherto best developed for non-vague sentences and propositions (which it can supply with unambiguous semantic content). the topic of vagueness was extensively studied [see. Plausibly. The law of excluded middle similarly comes into question: “either Tek is tall or he is not” seems untrue. the formal logic itself is empty of content.2) Suppose Tek is borderline tall. 2003. it is opposed to metaphysics2. are normally too vague to fit into this type. p. 86): Of course.you will reach wrong conclusions. In this article we specialize in philosophy of science. it asserts that they both cannot be true.

Kiev. In other words. it leads to a formal counter-posing of “is” and “is not”. even a most simple one. We started from two simple hypotheses about sunshine.' I can't at the same time claim 'not X' "). Thus. For the purpose of our discussion it is enough to say that a particular hypotheses must not be abstracted/detached from the real object or the process. about the real world its very content depends on our inquiry. that it is a logical relation between propositions ("If I claim 'X. thereby filling it with a priori content. and not a real relation existing in the world. I do not go into the disagreement between Kuhn and Popper here in order not to draw away our attention from the main point. thereby asserting that the two are logically exclusive. i. Thus.in isolation from each other and from the process of our inquiry. This is exactly the trap we should not fall into. formal logic deals with notions or aspects of things abstracted from the real things themselves. but it makes the point. but in the process of our inquiry we acquired a lot of new
3 It is well know that the socio-cultural-historical aspects of the scientific progress were extensively elaborated by Thomas Kuhn is his famous work. London. Florence. but it is also not shining in Tokyo. Let us conduct a simple Gedankenexperiment. emit radiation into the outer space. We can go out to space where we will discover that our everyday sense of Sun's shining has a subjective aspect – Sun shining when and where it is shining for us. we will realize that for us as observers at the surface of the Earth the meaning of attributing the property of shining to the Sun has a spacial/geographical and temporal aspects. and should not be schematized. and thus arriving at a conclusion that any attempt to reconcile between the two in the form of synthesis will accept logical contradiction. and hopefully will do so in the foreseeable future. We will phone our friend around the world and (after apologizing to some of them for waking them up) ask to look out of the window and tell us whether the sun is shining now or not. in as sense. We can illustrate it with Popper's own simple example (Thesis) The sun is shining now (Anti-thesis) The sun is not shining now At first sight. Amsterdam. on the history of our views on the problem and so on3.The fallacy in Popper's approach consists of loading two propositions/scientific hypotheses with a certain content a priori. We will find out that objectively Sun started to shine. a product of the process of the inquiry itself. Very soon we will discover that the Sun is shining in Madrid.
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. on other hypotheses. Cairo. etc. And thus it is a (“metaphysical”) mistake to think of hypotheses – or indeed any proposition . However. when we consider a hypothesis. Sidney. Its content is. this is an illusion – we are misled by formal linguistic counter-posing of “is” and “is not”.e. these two proposition are evidently contradictory. This idea perhaps was best summarized by Ollman's (2003) The common sense notion of contradiction is that it applies to ideas about things and not to things themselves. This toy example is trivial. When Popper thinks of things (scientific hypotheses) and their properties in isolation from each other.

England. considers concepts of gas and liquid in isolation. namely oxygen is not a liquid. 17/10/07. it has spatio-temporal characteristics – the Sun might shine at (x1. The above example supports an interesting assertion that real scientific progress depends on vagueness and that formal logic is scientifically unimportant in this sense.e. still quite simple. England at 1:30 pm on Wednesday. We are chemists. These conclusions are full of a new content that was not in the original propositions before. ignore their interconnection. at 1:30 pm on Wednesday. Formal logic will be saved. This conclusion that oxygen can be a liquid is our antithesis or negation. One might be satisfied by the above example. called “oxygen”. and in our laboratory we have a test-tube with newly discovered substance. This is the synthesis or negation of the negation – oxygen can be a gas after all. about which we do not know anything yet. We knew all along that the Sun cannot both shine and not shine in the particular place at a particular time. Thus (Thesis) Oxygen is a gas (Anti-thesis) Oxygen is a liquid are in logical contradiction if one ignores oxygen as something that can be in process of change. no new content will be produced – we will just assert which one is true. However. One might wonder. above the Market Square (Anti-thesis) The sun is not shining in Cambridge. 96)]. We subject oxygen to various tests and soon discover that under certain conditions it does become a liquid. but I feel it necessary to discuss the following. We might say that our knowledge has developed into a new stage. though. t1). the original propositions are not in logical contradiction at all.
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. but not shine at (x2. Let us imagine the following hypothetical situation. i. We learned that sunshine can be interpreted as a property attributed to the Sun alone (independent of its observation) or as a characteristic of an observer's experience. Of course they are! But if we conduct a similar inquiry here then we will just refute either one or the other.content. t2). 17/10/07. We are going to test a scientific hypothesis that oxygen is a gas. yet more “scientific” example [see Cornforth (p. We immediately arrive at its negative version. Thus. This is our thesis. how I will cope with the following example (Thesis) The sun is shining in Cambridge. above the Market Square These two surely are mutually exclusive. The result of our study will be that oxygen is a gas under certain normal conditions of temperature and pressure. This example demonstrates how scientists reduce vagueness and sharpen scientific concepts by reconciling thesis and antithesis. it differs at various points of space and time.

The two (potential) aspects of an object's being (properties). One has to abstract them from the real object to make them logically incompatible. Formally. The additional powerful example is the superposition principle in quantum mechanics. in the framework of our classical experience our intuition about the world imposed rigid restrictions on properties classical objects can possess. obviously.e. depending on the nature of the experiment. But they are not logical contradictions. inherent contradictions are seen by dialectical materialism as the main source of development. (The discussion about the corpuscular and wave nature of light has a long history and became. So restrictive. physicists arrived at the novel concept of wave-particle duality. milk is white and is (at room temperature) wet. It implies or at least creates the impression that formal logic should be replaced by dialectic. They are contrastive sides or aspects of one real object or thing 4. and would never make any progress towards one of the most incredible scientific theories in the history of mankind. In particular. e. Thus. The term dialectal logic leads exactly to the sort of confusion that is presented in Popper's treatment of the problem. and to my view very important. for example. the incompatibility of the corpuscular and the wave nature of an object: any classical object can be either a wave or a particle.g. i. Thus. they would never escape from the loop of logical incompatibility of the different. As I have argued here. that in fact.g. The history of quantum physics has proved this approach to be radically wrong. see Novack (1969). so to speak.Now we are ready to see that the T&E scheme imposed on the development of scientific theories by Popper is much too restrictive. in two different locations at once. Let us try for a moment to reason without the baggage of that classical framework. They are contradictions in the operational sense. I strongly oppose this view exactly for the reasons given in this section. Instead. several contradictory properties can be trivially attributed to an object due to the predicative tension. but not contrary (i. namely “an object is a wave” and “an object is a particle” are not yet incompatible. and the property of being white is not the property of being wet. I would like to finish my discussion of the relation between formal logic and dialectic by the following. a classical example in philosophy of science). remark. i. mutually exclusive) in the logical sense. Sometimes in the literature [e. Following Popper's T&E method would mean that every time a scientist considers the two rival hypotheses about the nature of light and is going to test them in the laboratory. This example differs from the one given in the previous paragraph in that it demonstrated how scientists create new concepts.e. This is.
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.e. formal logic and dialectic belong to the different domains and must not be treated as potential replacements of each other. for example. If physicists followed Popper's T&E scheme. identify “being a particle” with “not being a wave”. apparently contradictory aspects. The core problem is that the scientific conceptual framework imposes logical incompatibility of certain hypotheses. Stavinsky (2003)] dialectic is presented as a kind of a new logic. using only trial-and-error method science could not make any progress at all. when to the same quantum object can be attributed a state of being. Maurice Cornforth very correctly points out that
4 It is important to mention that these contradictions are not of the predicative nature either. she would refute one of them. and a term dialectical logic is even used to describe this new type logic. as a counter to the conventional formal logic. not what dialectic means by 'opposites'.

Popper politicized dialectic helping to build prejudices against it. p. 5 The latter idea originates primarily from Engels and was never implied by Marx himself (Collier. historical materialism. 10
.86). this work is an attempt to rehabilitate dialectic by addressing Popper's original criticism.
VI. I am thankful to Larry Udell. Mark Stanford and Diego Rosende for helpful discussions and support. I would like to mention the main lessons that dialecticians should learn from Popper's criticism in the light of my previous discussion. In addition. Indeed. The latter found itself misused by several totalitarian regimes. they ought to convey that its application to the society and history. I am grateful to Mark Sprevak for his comments and help. The aim of this work was to reassess the relevance of Popper's criticism of the applicability of the dialectical approach to the development of scientific theories and scientific thought.'the laws of formal logic are of absolute validity. i. Thus.e. (2004) Marx. It is important that theoreticians of dialectical materialism will do more to depoliticise it. it should be clarified how dialectic classifies and differentiates different processes and types of connections in the world. the dialectical approach certainly suffers from its apparent applicability to “everything”. M. I argued that Popper has significantly contributed to the link that was unfortunately created between dialectical materialism as a philosophical-scientific system and communist ideology. Oxford: Oneworld. I am greatly indebted to Jeremy Butterfield for very useful remarks. any form of statement which sets them aside becomes thereby incoherent and inconsistent' (p. London: Lawrence and Wishart. 125). should not make any exact social predictions. Cornforth. Summary
The aim of this work was neither to present a (brief) review or study of modern dialectic nor to discuss the applicability of the dialectical approach to all development processes in Nature5. (1977) The Open Philosophy and the Open Society. I have presented and discussed the main points of Popper's criticism of dialectic and have concluded that it is unsound. I am grateful to David Miller and Alain Boyer for constructive criticism.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Zuzana Parusnikova for all the efforts she put into organizing the conference “Rethinking Popper” where I had a chance to present the ideas of this work for the first time. the problem that raised the most serious objections from Popper.
References
Collier. In particular. In the interest of anti-dogmatic science these prejudice should be dissolved. And finally. A.